


he fell asleep in the passenger seat

by arminhair



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, M/M, Work In Progress, eren is quirky doe, i will write spurs of this late at night lol, idk when i will finish this shit, pls be nice, this is my first fic ever, this is very self indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-24 01:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23301265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arminhair/pseuds/arminhair
Summary: childhood friends to lovers?!?! who would have thought
Relationships: Armin Arlert & Eren Yeager, Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager, Hange Zoë/Levi, Ymir Fritz/Krista Lenz | Historia Reiss
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic and I like it alot pls be nice :( also if anyone wants it I have a playlist that goes along with this full of sappy indie love songs

The year is 2004. It is 5:04 on a chilly November evening and two young boys are walking down a street lit in orange by the slinking sun. One is wearing a brand new north face jacket that he got for his birthday, the other wearing a patterned sweater and his sisters long red scarf. All was well. The boy with the new jacket was sucking on a clump of his golden hair, listening to the other boy complain about god knows what in his slight lisp. Suddenly, the scarf-clad boy slowed to a stop and kicked a pebble into the sand just off the side of the road.  
"Armin- I have something I need to tell you."  
"What is it?"  
"I'm- my family.... we're moving away."  
Armin gasped and covered his small mouth.  
"What?! Why? Where are you going?"  
The boy in the red scarf answered each question with patience. He explained that his father received a promotion in a hospital in a city about 4 hours north of the small beach town. It was really very simple. The two boys continued walking and talking about their new topic of interest. Armin slowed down, thumbing the metal buttons on his jacket.  
"Eren.... will you write letters to me about your new school and your new friends and your new house?"  
He worried most about being forgotten.  
"Yeah! I'll write about all that and the new city and everything!"  
A smile crept onto armin's face and he jumped at his friend to playfully push him over. Eren reciprocated and the two giggled and fought in the empty street, now lit by a lonely street lamp. They got up and grasped hands for the walk home. All was well. 

Eren moved exactly 3 months and 16 days later. Armin never thought he would be quite as lonely as he was. He cried most nights, with the exception of the days eren sent letters. The handwriting was beautiful, as eren's mother Carla wrote the letters since eren couldn't write yet. Armin could read well for his age, but sometimes he had his mom read him the letters instead of their usual bedtime story just to hear them out loud.  
As the years went on, however, the letters became more and more sparse. Eventually eren learned to write himself and they became hard to read as the beautiful, clean handwriting of Carla was replaced by chicken scratch. Armin's grandfather began reading the letters, but his eyes were bad and he had trouble deciphering the young boys writing. Eventually the letters stopped. The years went by and the boys grew older and angsty, but even through these years Armin kept the letters in a small red shoebox alongside pictures from his childhood. He would remove this box from the floor of his cramped closet whenever he felt lonely, flipping through the time capsule, reading the letters in a 5 year old Eren's voice until he didn't feel so alone anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos everybody! Here is chapter 2!!!

A pill bottle rattled in place as a train passed by Armin’s window. Worried that it would fall and create more of a racket, he reached up and grasped it. The gentle music playing through his bluetooth speaker was drowned out by the drone of the train. Armin groaned and rolled out of bed. 

The old floorboards creaked under his feet and he moved to a stack of boxes filling up nearly a third of his bedroom. Opening one labeled “misc.” in his own loopy handwriting, he huffed a breath of humored air out of his nose as he thought about the large fraction of boxes labeled in the same manner. By now the train had passed and he could finally hear his music again, though a new song had started playing. Removing smaller boxes and tissue-paper padding, he began to unpack stuffed animals, boxes of Christmas and birthday cards, a pair of scissors, a swiss army knife, and a vintage lighter in addition to other jumbled objects. He set these in their temporarily respective places and listened to the music, “Wings wouldn’t help you, wings wouldn’t help you down.”

He huffed another suppressed chuckle. Tomorrow was his first day of high school, and at a new school nonetheless. He reassured himself that it couldn’t be any worse than the 3 diabolical years of middle school he suffered through with no friends. Not a single friend. There were acquaintances of course, everybody has them. But not one person that he could invite over, not one person that he could share his lunch with. _I could really use a pair of wings to help me down._ But more than anything he wanted a hand to hold. 

The ruthless digital clock read 3:04 AM. He rubbed his face with his hand and bit one of his fingernails. Even though he knew there would be no notifications, he checked his phone anyways. It was just one of those things lonely people do. Getting up one last time to shut off his speaker and perform a basic nighttime routine, Armin continued to dwell on what his experience at this new school would be like. He didn’t let himself admit it, but he was not excited, no matter how much he repeated it to himself. His palms began to sweat. 

Lying under his blue velvet comforter, listening to his grandfather snore in the bedroom below him, he did what he always did whenever he found himself unable to sleep: he imagined himself seated at the ocean’s edge in the backyard of his former home. Drifting off to sleep after much tossing and turning, he brought his hands together and thought about the unchanging roar of the ocean, and his breath evened out. 

-

Armin woke with a jolt to the sound of his insistent alarm at 6:40. He tried as hard as he could to rub the sleep out of his eyes but it simply wouldn’t go. Grabbing the hand-thrown cup filled about a quarter full with dusty water, he popped a large white pill into his needy mouth. He opened his dresser drawer and pulled on a pair of baggy overalls and a shirt about as big as a tent with the words “DAUPHIN ISLAND” plastered across the chest in faded pink letters. His look was completed with a pair of oxford Doc Martens. He grabbed his backpack and stomped down the stairs.  
“Keep it down will you?” his grandfather protested with a smile, not looking up from his newspaper.  
“Sorry” Armin groused, setting down his backpack to pour himself a cup of blackberry tea. He liked it with 2 spoonfuls of honey.  
“First day at this new school, eh? Jeez, and it’s HIGH school as well. Good luck making it through kid.” jested his grandfather, though he meant no harm. Armin knew this but as he stirred his tea he wished that he would at least give some good, elder advice for once. His grandfather was a kind but sorrowful man who always seemed to view the glass as being half empty.  
Anyways, he ate some of the eggs that sat on the faux marble counter and double-checked the route to his new school on his phone. Grabbing his tea and lifting his backpack onto his broad shoulders, he opened the door.  
“Bye Pops.” He waved his long fingers and without waiting for a response, jumped onto the landing and walked down the sidewalk. 

It was 7:04 and a 25 minute walk to Rose High School. Armin had examined pictures of it on Google so he knew what it looked like. In an instant he knew that it was a public school trying desperately to conceal it’s lack of funding. There was a large gym, a small courtyard, and 3 stories not including the basement, all of which were in various states of disrepair. Hopefully the teachers and students made up for what the building itself lacked. Armin loved imagining the friends he would (hopefully) make. 

He dreamed of big personalities and kind faces and hands while cars in technicolor whizzed past his head, blowing his blonde hair into his mouth and eyes. He might have put it up into a ponytail if he wasn’t so scared of looking like a girl. The sidewalk grew wider as he approached the school, which had a large banner strung in front of one of the many doorways that read “Winner of the 2016 Blue Ribbon Award”. Armin wondered what in the hell the blue ribbon award could be and walked up the cracked concrete steps to the main entrance. 

The halls were nearly empty and smelled of heavy cleaning supplies (but not as heavy as a hospital’s). He recalled the line of his “Welcome Sheet” that stated the custom of students congregating in the gym before class began and walked around aimlessly until he found the way to the gym. He ascended the stairs and stepped through the door to a mass of students buzzing like fluorescent lights with the sound of their voices. On an empty spot of floor near the outskirts of the gym he sat on his phone, wandering social media until the bell rang.

“Geometry- RM 245” read the screen of his phone as he climbed his way to the second floor. He entered the classroom to a tall, blonde haired man who his schedule named as Mr. Smith writing directions on the Smartboard. Armin sat in a seat on the left side of the room, in front of a girl who paid no attention to him, instead turned around in her seat chatting with the boy behind her, who was laughing hysterically behind his hand. 

Yelling in the hallway made Armin look up just as two tall boys entered the room.  
“Look, it’s the first day of school and my Dad will KILL me if he finds out I got into a fight with Jean Kirstein, so don’t push it horseface.” said the taller boy. Armin immediately recognized his voice, though it had 12 year pinned onto it. His face lit up, though he had no idea what to say.  
“Okay, okay… I’ll save this fight for another day, hothead.” raised the boy Eren had named as Jean. 

Sighing a breath of mixed emotions, Eren turned into the classroom and looked around. His eyes locked onto Armin’s, who immediately looked away, trying desperately to cover up his smile.

“Hey… do I know you?” Eren questioned, though before Armin could even come up with an answer, his green eyes lit up and his face split into a shining metal smile.  
“Oh my god, you’re Armin Arlert! We used to be friends back when we were kids!” Eren stated excitedly. He dropped into the seat in front of Armin, who was returning Eren’s grin. “How did you end up here?”

As other students filed in, Armin explained that it was a long story that should be told after school and questioned Eren on how he was. However, before he could answer, the blonde teacher shut the door and turned to the class. Eren flashed a pair of green braces at Armin one last time before turning around and beginning to write vigorously on a piece of paper that he passed to Armin about 5 minutes later. 

Armin’s first period went by in a blur as he sat doodling on his syllabus. He hardly paid attention to Mr. Smith, instead spending his energy covering his elated smiles in the palm of his hand. The note from Eren read:  
_We have alot to catch up on, and you have to tell me all of it! You HAVE to sit with me at lunch every day this week to meet my friends and catch up with me PS I love your hair_ :)

Armin could think of little else.


End file.
